Sojourn
Gershom (גֵּרְשֹׁם)
גֵּר הָיִיתִי, בְּאֶרֶץ נָכְרִיָּה
I have been a sojourner in a foreign land
- Aug 2012-Sep 2015 College Station, Texas
- Sep 2015-Aug 2016 Osaka, Japan
- Aug 2016-May 2017 College Station, Texas
- Aug 2017-Dec 2018 Austin, Texas
- Feb 2019-Feb 2020 San Jose, California
- Mar 2020-May 2021 Cypress, Texas
- Aug 2021-May 2022 (?) College Station, Texas
Since high school, I have moved 7 times. 6 of those times were in the last 7 years. Since September 2015, I move on average once every 55 weeks. This isn’t even counting all the summer jobs, or the drifting around I did in 2020.
It now feels like God may be calling me to pack up and move again. This would be the fourth time in my life where I relocate to a place where I have zero connections. The idea of moving fills me with excitement, but it also fills me with dread.
I kind of hate moving because it makes me feel lonely.
I hate the word lonely, because it’s such a pathetic word that doesn’t take the experience seriously. Loneliness is an epidemic in America, affecting three out of five people; loneliness is as deadly as obesity or smoking- loneliness literally kills. Once I took a sociology class on dating and marriage; during the class I came across a statistic showing that twenty-five percent of adults report not having a close friend. I wondered why we weren’t having a class on how people don’t have friends because I feel like society should be losing their collective minds about that.
I think people, including me, dislike using the word lonely because it seems to imply a lack of social aptitude. Lonely is just a synonym for loser.
Rather, loneliness, at its core, is the experience of not belonging. While a lack of social connections can cause loneliness, it’s not loneliness itself. Sometimes being successful can actually be a source of loneliness. Being surrounded by people, even people who like you, can make you lonely- when you realize you don’t really connect with them, or they don’t get you, or they are different from you. The loneliest moments I’ve ever had have been during worship services.
Moving doesn’t just make me feel like I don’t belong, it reminds me that I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged anywhere. Ever.
I’ve never fit in. Usually the only the Asian in a room of white people. Too much like a white person around Chinese people. Too awkward and quiet to fit in with extroverts. Too passionate and outspoken to fit in with introverts. Too emotional for a guy. The problem child. Never feeling heard, let alone understood. Not even comfortable in my own skin.
I feel this odd mixture of desire, jealousy, and resentment when I think about how other people just “get along” and I’m left out. Like I’m in the cold, standing in the snow, looking at everyone else enjoying a cozy dinner inside. Do they just not know I’m out here? Do they know, but not care? Are they even excluding me on purpose?
I get so sad, pathetic, and angry thinking about it, so strongly craving affection, wanting to be included but also hating that I’m not included. I don’t even think this is how it really is. But this myth is always playing out in the back of my head.
One of the reasons I dread moving is because it will reveal to me who was never really my friend in the first place. When I moved to Japan, when I moved to Austin, when I moved to California, so many people expressed sadness about me going. Much fewer people actually bothered to keep up with me and call me when I felt lonely. And almost nobody visited me, like they said they would.
Moving doesn’t just make me feel like I’m alone in the moment, it makes me feel like I was always alone.
Abel (הֶ֫בֶל)
אָדָם, לַהֶבֶל דָּמָה; יָמָיו, כְּצֵל עוֹבֵר
Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow
When I am spiraling, the out for me is always to shift from why are people doing this to me? to why is God doing this to me?
Why does God allow us to go through seasons where we feel like a stranger?
Well, he seems to do it a lot. Intentionally.
God calls Abraham to leave his home. Isaac sends Jacob away. Joseph is sold into slavery and taken away. Moses flees into exile. God even tells Abraham that he will make his descendants a nation of sojourners for 400 years, immediately after telling him that he will possess the land he is in. It just feels like God is super into displacing his people. It’s almost a requirement for being associated with him.
After being exiled from the Garden, Eve has a child. She names him Cain, because she thinks “I have obtained a man with the help of the Lord”. The grammar is actually ambiguous here- it could mean that she is acknowledging God’s help in the process, or it could mean that she is actually comparing herself to God. Because, up to this point, only God can create people. But now Eve thinks pretty good of herself because she just made a person.
Then, Eve has a second child. What does she name this guy? Vapor. That’s what the word Abel literally means. Also transliterated as Hevel, this is the word that is used in Ecclesiastes when it says “Vanity, vanity, everything is vanity!”
The text doesn’t comment on why she names him that. But I feel kind of sad for Abel. It’s almost like she gives him a name to indicate that he’s unnecessary. Thanks but no thanks, I already have a seed to fulfill the Genesis 3 prophecy! He’s so insubstantial that his name is literally vapor. His very existence is ephemeral.
His lifestyle suits his name. Abel is a shepherd, living nomadically, moving from place to place. He sojourns. On the other hand, Cain seems to be really into establishing things. He is a farmer. Cain literally sets down roots! Cain also builds the first city: note the word build (ba-nah) is really similar to the word obtain (qa-nah) that Eve uses when naming him.
When both of them offer sacrifice, whose is deemed righteous? Abel’s. But why?
When I was in California, I lived in a camper van. As the pandemic hit in March 2020, it took me all of six hours to get ready to leave. I was out of there. Why? Because I was already living like I didn’t belong there. I always told myself and others that I lived in the van for purely financial reasons, but maybe, subconsciously, I knew I was doing it because I didn’t think California was my home. My home was Texas, and I was ready to go back. I always had everything packed up if needed.
In Genesis 4, there’s good reason to believe that where Abel and Cain are offering sacrifices is at the entrance to the garden. Why does Abel live like a sojourner, a foreigner? Because he is one. He is an exile, a stranger, an alien. He belongs in Eden. He just has to stay in this world while he’s waiting. As soon as that door to Eden opens, he’s already got his bags packed. Cain, in contrast, seems pretty content where he is. He’s got a farm going, he’s making moves, he’s doing great. In an earthly perspective, that’s praiseworthy, but from an edenic one, it’s absolutely foolish. Why invest so much out here when the opportunity to re-enter Eden is at hand?
When you have nothing to lose, giving away everything is kind of easy. That’s why Abel’s sacrifice is superior. He gives radically, because he just doesn’t have much to begin with. But Cain? He might have animals to feed, workers to pay, utilities to manage, water heaters to fix, cleaning to do. He can’t give as radically, because he’s established.
Why does God give me this itch, this feeling like I don’t belong? And why does he reinforce it through seasons of uprooting? Because, in truth, I don’t belong. My home is not of this world. And it would be so tragic if I somehow tricked myself into feeling like I did.
This world is just a waiting room. Why should we feel like we belong? We should, instead, be eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new creation. We shouldn’t be nesting. The spirit isn’t doing that. The spirit is groaning for the new to come. We’re supposed to be about as comfortable in this world as a woman in the middle of labor. That’s the image used in Romans 8.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Romans 8:20–26
Setting down roots here is just like building a house in the middle of an airport terminal. It doesn’t make sense.
God made it clear to the Israelites, before he settled them in the land, that they were to maintain their identity as sojourners.
You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 22:21)
You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 23:9)
You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:34)
The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. (Leviticus 25:23)
Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19)
You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land. (Deuteronomy 23:7)
The way that the Israelites were to live, especially in how they treated foreigners, was meant to be rooted in the acknowledgement that they were (and still are!) sojourners.
Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and the widow are wronged in you.
Ezekiel 22:7
Of course they do forget, and it’s up to the prophets to confront Israel for its actions. The prophets are a group of Israelites that live as if they were foreigners in their own country. Think about how John the baptist lived:
Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.
Matthew 3:4
Jeremiah is a prophet during the days of Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, the very end of the kingdom of Judah. As the kingdom falls its inhabitants are taken into exile, but not all at once; at one point a large portion of the inhabitants are taken away by Babylon but some Jews remain in Jerusalem. Jeremiah’s job is to tell the remaining Jews to accept exile, or else they are disobeying God. Jeremiah receives a vision that informs him that the Jews that were taken are like “good figs” and the Jews that remain are like “bad figs”. Counterintuitively, it is by accepting exile that the “good figs” will actually become established.
The two baskets of figs are shown as being placed as food offerings in front of the temple. The wanderers, the exiles, the sojourners are declared ripe and acceptable by the lord, while the ones stubbornly rooted in Judah are rotten, “so bad that they could not be eaten” (Jeremiah 24).
This is not the first “wilderness” generation which is considered righteous. The first “wilderness” generation is found in Exodus. A nation of liberated slaves crossed the red sea; but once in the wilderness they repeatedly quarreled with God and were too fearful to enter the promised land. They were destined to die in the wilderness. However, their descendants, the wilderness generation, were obedient and “served the Lord all the days of Joshua” (Judges 2:7). They are able to enter the promised land and establish themselves. But after them “there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord” (Judges 2:10).
Sandwiched between two godless generations, the wilderness generation grew up without a home, spending forty years in the desert. Forty is a symbol that represents such a variety of ideas in the Bible. God sends rain for forty days and forty nights to bring about the flood. It takes Isaac forty years to get married. Jacob is embalmed for forty days. The spies spend forty days spying out Israel- and then the nation is sentenced to forty years of exile as a consequence. The Judges of Israel repeatedly give Israel forty (or eighty) years of rest, but they also suffer forty years of oppression under the Philistines. David and Solomon each reign for forty years. Ezekiel prophesies an exile for the Egyptians, lasting forty years.
Jesus spends forty days in the wilderness, just as Moses and Elijah did. It was both exile and rest. Jesus is tempted, but he is also empowered by the presence of God, freshly anointed by the spirit. God seems to exile those he chooses.
Jesus doesn’t just identify with the sojourning generation, he literally is a sojourner. It’s just the way he lives. He wanders Israel, completely reliant on truly obedient Jews to offer hospitality as the law commands. He has no home of his own; he stays with anyone who is able to host him, even if they are a tax collector. He has no fields of his own; he and his followers glean from the crops of others, just as the sojourners do.
Let’s say I want to follow Jesus. What’s his response?
And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Matthew 8:19–20
Judah (יְהוּדָה)
הַפַּעַם אוֹדֶה אֶת-יְהוָה
This time I will praise the Lord
On January 9, 2021, it snowed in Texas.
Some would say it was a winter miracle.
I was driving back from New Mexico, where my friend had gotten engaged. It was getting dark. I could have stopped in Amarillo but I decided to drive as far as possible to Dallas so that my drive the next day would only be a few hours. While passing through a small speed trap town, my headlights went out.
I immediately pulled over and turned on my hazards which still worked. I turned my car on and off, and fiddled with the controls. I could get the lights on again, but now the engine was now making a horrible clicking sound. The turn signals didn’t work anymore either. In fact, anything found on the left control knob was unresponsive, including my windshield wipers. I drove to the closest truck stop I could, and started setting up for bed, planning my next steps. Then it started snowing.
Literally in the middle of nowhere with a broken down car, and it started snowing for the first time in years. It didn’t feel like a miracle.
That was probably one of the most desperate moments in my life. While I was driving and my headlights went out I started praying for them to start working again. Then I thought that’s so stupid, God doesn’t answer prayers like that.
After I pulled into the truck stop I prayed for guidance, I prayed for wisdom, I prayed for plans to repair the van to work out well. I prayed for peace. And then in a last ditch effort, I decided to pray for God to fix the van as well. Might as well?
I woke up and it was still snowing. Now there was a layer of slush on the window. Even if my engine wasn’t in the process of breaking, I couldn’t see because of my windshield wipers. I prayed again for God to fix my van.
I put the keys in the ignition and turned. VrrrrRRRRRrrrrr. No clicking sound.
I signaled a turn. Tik. Tak. Tik. Tak.
I flipped on the windshield wipers. Skrrrrr. Skrrrr.
Layers of slush started piling up at the edge of my windshield.
The van was working perfectly. I later found out that a fuse had blown in my dashboard and that there were significant problems with how my van’s battery terminal connectors were done, which gives a human explanation for all of the issues I was experiencing. Still, to this date it’s still one of the most miraculous experiences I have had.
The point of this story for me isn’t that prayer works, although it definitely made me reconsider some assumptions about prayer that I had made.
That night, my mind was racing for options of how to fix the van. It was also possible that the van was just totaled, and I would have to get rid of it. I was doing what I did best- making a lot of plans and calculations. In the midst of the mental noise, though, I had a thought.
You know what God? You’ve given me so much. In fact, you’ve given me everything. You can take the van. I don’t understand why you want it, but you can have it, or anything I have. It’s yours anyway.
In that snowy wilderness, I learned a little bit about giving.
Jacob learned about giving when he was in the wilderness too. Jacob is a schemer and he’s good with numbers. But he manages to scheme himself into getting his brother murderously angry. He flees home with nothing but the shirt on his back. In the middle of nowhere, he finds God’s house (Bethel). There he receives a vision of angels ascending and descending, and also God’s promise of immeasurable blessing. Jacob, who only knows how to clutch and grab (his name means heel grabber), begins to think wait, what can I offer God?
Jacob offers God a tenth of what he has. He does so in a weird bargaining way when he has literally no leverage. But he offers something nonetheless.
God can use pretty much anything to accomplish his purposes. The book of Judges is a case study of God doing something with less than nothing. Shamgar defeats hundreds of Philistines with just an ox goad. Samson a thousand with a jaw bone.
But what God especially likes to use is the generosity of humans.
In John 6, a huge crowd follows Jesus up a mountain because of the healings that he was doing. Concerned with the physical needs of the multitude, Jesus asks the disciples how they can feed them.
Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.
John 6:5–13
Jesus chooses to multiply the generosity of a child to feed the five thousand. Surely there were others that had food they could offer, but only the boy offered what he had. What a tiny token of faith it was for the boy to offer it. It would have been so easy for him to decide that what he had was insignificant and not worth sharing.
If God can do so much with some fish and bread, what could he do with my life?
Jacob’s story is one of darkness. It’s a story of deception, greed, and generational trauma. As a literary unit it spans Genesis 25–36. In the structural center of the story is an account of how Jacob’s children were born.
Let’s look at this account in context. After this account is an episode of Jacob and Laban tricking and bargaining over flocks of cattle and sheep. Prior to this account is an episode of Jacob and Laban tricking and bargaining over humans- Rachel and Leah, whose names mean lamb and calf in Hebrew. In the midst of this narrative of how men treat women like objects, we find a tragic account of how women treat children like objects.
Rachel and Leah see their children as a means of establishing their position in the family; Leah thinks that by bearing sons, she can bribe her husband into loving her. She uses her own children as pawns in this sad power game. At one point Leah bargains with Rachel. She trades her son Reuben’s mandrakes for a night with Jacob. As a result Leah has Issachar, whose name literally means wages. Just as Jacob views Rachel as his wages, Leah views her Issachar as her wages. God’s intended vision of children, Isaac (laughter and delight) has become Issachar (payment and wages).
But in the middle of this cycle of objectification, Leah remembers God.
And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing.
Genesis 29:35
She goes, wait, what about God? And then among her seven children, she decides to give the fourth one back to God. The word used for praise is what you do with an arrow. It literally means to throw. Just like my last ditch prayer in the van, Leah’s firing off a hail mary with Judah.
What’s God’s response? He establishes a kingdom from Judah, a kingdom with no end, a kingdom whose line produces the savior of the world.
Leah gives Judah, so God gives Jesus.
Fools fold their hands
and ruin themselves.Better one handful with tranquillity
than two handfuls with toil
and chasing after the wind.Ecclesiastes 4:5–6
Whether we fold our hands in dejection or grab and clutch in toil, the problem is that our hands are closed to what God offers. It’s almost like by taking a single finger off of her grip on Jacob, Leah is able to create a landing spot for the fullness of God’s grace to descend and establish his entire salvation plan, not just for Leah but for the entire human race.
The problem is that Leah’s perspective is limited. She has tender eyes, after all. She can’t understand the absolute breadth of God’s plan. Paul in Ephesians calls God “him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ask or think”. We cannot imagine what God can do. Leah has her blinders on; the only good life she can imagine is one where her husband has affection for her. She is unaware of the magnitude of God’s affection.
Jesus’ disciples are the ones who are always crunching the numbers. It’s gonna cost two hundred denarii to feed all these people. That perfume costs three hundred denarii, what a waste! We think our mental activity amounts to knowledge and wisdom. What we can never account for is God’s abundance.
From where I stand, I see lots of red numbers. I see loss: the literal financial loss of leaving a cushy job. All of the friends and community I’m going to leave behind. The feeling of alienation. The fear of the unknown. My imagination is so constrained and limited. The abundance of God is out of sight for me. My eyes are bad.
I’m so focused on looking at the people having dinner inside that I can’t see the manna falling from heaven.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
John 6:51
I want to give it all for God. If Jesus poured himself out for us and Paul offered his life as a drink offering, perhaps I can offer half a drink offering? Can I even give a tenth, like Jacob?
White knuckles, both hands tightly clutching, can I loosen a single finger?
Eliezer (אֱלִיעֶ֫זֶר)
אֱלֹהֵי אָבִי בְּעֶזְרִי
The God of my father was my help
At the end of Joshua, God summarizes why he removed Abraham from his homeland:
Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many.
Joshua 24:2–3
God uproots us as an opportunity so we can leave our idols.
As Jacob takes Rachel and Leah and his possessions and flees his father in law, Rachel clutches her father’s household gods. Doing so incurs the wrath of Laban. Jacob responds swears that whoever is found in possession of the household gods will be put to death. Rachel narrowly avoids being discovered.
There’s really no explicit clues as to what these household gods are. Maybe they are just a way for Rachel to look behind at the home she’s leaving behind. But they are probably some kind of fertility statues, given their widespread use at the time.
Plus, it makes sense in context of the narrative. Because if Leah’s idol is her husband’s love, Rachel’s idol is obviously having children.
At this point in the story. Rachel has only had a single biological child. “And she called his name Joseph, saying, ‘May the Lord add to me another son!’” (Genesis 30:24). Joseph pretty much just means gimme more. The nature of idolatry is that it offers false fulfillment. Rachel isn’t satisfied with a single child. She immediately just wants more. Idolatry isn’t just empty food, it’s poison. It kills.
Rachel’s idolatry nearly ends her life when she leaves Paddan-aram, but it finally does so when she bears Benjamin, because she dies in childbirth.
Idolatry isn’t just dangerous to the idol worshipper, it’s dangerous to the object of idolatry as well. We know that because Joseph was elevated, he wasn’t treated well by his brothers. The chronology of when Joseph is sold into slavery is ambiguous, but I personally believe (based on a few context clues) that it actually occurred before Rachel bore Benjamin. If true, this means that Rachel spent the last few years of her life without her son. And when she does bear another child, she is able to see him grow up. She calls this son Ben-oni: “son of my sorrow”.
Although Moses and Joshua warn the Israelites to forsake the foreign gods they left behind, the idol worship persists and becomes a “thorn in their side” (Numbers 33:55). The idols of the Israelites are the same as those of Rachel. The Baals and Asherim were fertility gods, promising abundance of grain and offspring. What they demanded in return was child sacrifice.
The idolatry of children led directly to the murder of children. How ironic.
If you were God, what would you do?
God uprooted Israel, and sent them into exile. The word for barren in Hebrew is aqar. Its literal meaning is to be uprooted. He makes Israel barren.
I have a different mental image of my sojourning.
When Naomi suggests that Ruth marry Boaz, she asks, “should I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you?” (Ruth 3:1). The word rest comes from the flood narrative:
Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth.
Genesis 8:8–9
Flying around in perpetuity, unable to find a place to land, perfectly describes the experience of singleness. It’s like treading water because you barely can’t stand on the bottom of the pool. It’s like being out in the cold, only able to stay warm by moving quickly.
If Rachel’s idol is having children, then mine is getting married.
Sarah, who is barren, seeks to circumvent God’s plan by encouraging her husband to use their slave Hagar. Her justification is that through this act, Sarah will be able to “obtain children” through her slave. The word used for obtain is the same word that is used when Cain builds his city. Sarah thinks that having children will establish her.
In the same sense I feel that getting married will give me worth, significance, and security: by doing so I’ll establish myself, or so I think. This is my scheme to escape my exile. I know it must seem as ridiculous as Rachel’s scheme or Sarah’s scheme.
It can be tremendously difficult for me to talk about singleness for some reason, even though it feels like I talk about it all the time. Or maybe not just singleness but all of my failed attempts to escape it. Thinking about this topic makes me feel weird and vulnerable and embarrassed and above all, an overwhelming sense of being pathetic.
This emotion is so complicated to me because below all of the social expectations and shame and childhood wounds and negative self talk, I think there is something actually valid to my feeling pathetic that I can’t discard. I think it’s the guilt of idolatry.
If I think marrying someone will give me worth, then ultimately the problem is that I’m using that person. In some sense, it’s not any different than using pornography. The core issue is objectification.
This is actually harder for me to talk about than pornography. At least porn is something that most people have struggled with.
Infatuation is like a drug to me. If I had to describe what infatuation felt like to me, it would be like the adrenaline rush of going on a roller coaster plus the warm fuzzy feeling of being curled up in a blanket. It feels so good to me that it can make me sick, like eating too much candy. And I’m a junkie. It used to be that if I crushed on someone, I would just spend hours looking at everything I could find about them on the internet. Just scrolling through their pictures over and over. Reading random blog posts they made when they were in high school. And in the rare situation that I didn’t have a crush, I’d go hunting for one. I’d look at mutual friends, or suggested friends, to see what was out there. There are times I’ve met someone and already know who they were because I’ve scoped out their social media profile many times. I’d lie and pretend to not know them.
Did I mention that I feel more ashamed about this than using pornography? Idolatry makes us see other people as less than people. Idolatry makes us less than people.
If you were God, what would you do?
I’d uproot me.
2017 was probably the year that I recognized that this was a problem. That the way I approached relationships wasn’t just not working, but that there was something morally wrong about it. I responded by trying to burn out anything in me that wanted to be married. I took a “break” from dating and refused to let myself feel anything towards a girl. And if I did, I would feel incredibly guilty about it.
Guess what? That didn’t work.
My idol remained, like a thorn in my side.
I think my problem was that I interpreted the pruning as a divine punishment for my sin. Bad Bruce! How dare you like a girl! Well it may have been, but it’s more than that. When God uproots us, it’s an invitation to something more.
Because if we are not first uprooted, how else would we be grafted into the vine?
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.”
John 14:2–4
God sends us into the wilderness so that we can find his house.
The image of preparing a place is something that a groom does for his bride. After becoming betrothed, he prepares a spot on his father’s property where his fiancee can move in.
Isn’t that the point, all along? The end of the whole story? Immanuel- God with us.
I forgot about Eden.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
John 14:16–17
When God makes Adam, he states that it’s not good for man to be alone. An isolated human is incapable of fulfilling their purpose, which is to act as an image of God. They need a helper. The Hebrew word for this is Ezer. Without an Ezer, the text is clear that the human is doomed.
I wonder how Moses felt, driven into the wilderness as a young man. He was the adopted son of a princess; he was in the position to make a life for himself. Because of his mistake, all that was ripped away from him in an instant. How often did he long for his previous life? Did he ever fantasize about the family he could have started?
Moses eventually does get married in the wilderness. He names his second child Eliezer: “God was my Ezer”.
Being single isn’t the same as being alone.
In the upper room, Jesus describes the helper that is going to arrive. This helper dwells not just with us but in us. This helper empowers, teaches, and comforts. This helper gives us a home by making us a home.
Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
love her, and she will guard you.
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.
Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honor you if you embrace her.
She will place on your head a graceful garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.Proverbs 4:6–9
The book of Proverbs, whose audience is young men, speaks of the process of obtaining wisdom. Wisdom is personified as a woman, and seeking wisdom is like searching for a lover. In fact, Proverbs 1–9 shares much language with the Song of Songs- the father instructs the son to embrace wisdom just as the man embraces the woman in Song of Songs.
One book that wrecked me last year was Breaking the Marriage Idol by Kutter Callaway. A good book only needs to present a few good ideas to be worth reading. Callaway makes two observations:
- Men and women are not given in marriage in the new creation.
- Men and women do not cease to be men and women in the new creation. That is, sexuality is not lost.
What does that mean? It means that fundamentally, sexuality is not about marriage. Or rather sex is not about marriage. Or sex is not about the physical act of having sex.
In the book, Callaway discusses the experiences of contemporary nuns, pointing out that they do not view celibacy as an obstacle to living in their sexuality. Many, in fact, become nuns because they’ve found the attempt to fulfill their sexuality outside of consecrated life lacking.
How is this possible? I have to admit that at first this sounded like breatharianism (the belief that one can live without food on water) to me.
We live in a hyper sexualized culture. We may believe that the physical act of having sex is a key experience of what it means to be human. Even the christian culture’s stance toward sex has failed to dethrone it as being of primary importance- instead we just focus on sex within marriage and claim that abstinence in the short term will make it fulfilling in the long term.
Holding this belief makes it unbearably difficult to be single. Not being married and therefore not having sex isn’t just emasculating- it’s dehumanizing. Singleness becomes a weird limbo where we yearn to become “real people” by getting married.
But the fact that in heaven we are not given in marriage flies in the face of this cultural assumption. We don’t really do our due diligence of grappling with these kingdom truths, and we don’t really do a good job of it when we do. I’ve had some conversations with friends where they think that because we aren’t given in marriage, heaven must be some kind of gigantic orgy. We arrive at these disgusting conclusions because even for single christians, we simply cannot imagine an existence where sex is not a possibility.
When I was a small boy I can remember feeling intense attraction but not knowing what the outlet of those feelings was. I only knew what kissing was, so that’s what I fantasized about. When I hit puberty and learned about sex, I thought oh, of course that’s what I actually wanted. But was it really?
When the Bible speaks about sex, it talks about cleaving with another, or knowing another, or being naked and vulnerable with another. What if there is a real and deep experience of union of which the physical act of sex is just a shallow reflection? What would that union be?
I think our present outlook might be like that of a small boy who, on being told that the sexual act was the highest bodily pleasure, should immediately ask whether you ate chocolates at the same time. On receiving the answer ‘No,’ he might regard [the] absence of chocolates as the chief characteristic of sexuality. In vain would you tell him that the reason why lovers in their raptures don’t bother about chocolates is that they have something better to think of. The boy knows chocolate: he does not know the positive thing that excludes it. We are in the same position. We know the sexual life; we do not know, except in glimpses, the other thing which, in Heaven, will leave no room for it.
C. S. Lewis
The ultimate root of the word sex means cut, or divide. In the Genesis narrative, sex is created when humanity is cut in half (BibleProject podcast on this) and given maleness and femaleness. Our sexuality is our awareness of separation and desire for reunion. In fact, we would not be human without our sexuality; without our need for others. That’s why it’s not good for humanity to be alone.
In this sense, our earliest sexual experiences are with our parents. Babies cry when they recognize they are separated from their parents and stop crying when they are reassured that their parents are there for them. This is why any kind of interference with a child’s relationship with their parents will have inevitably huge consequences for any kind of romantic relationship down the line. Our relationships with our mothers and fathers serve as the model for how we engage in any kind of attachment for the rest of our lives.
It’s no surprise then, that the consequence of the fall is a brutal twisting of our most fundamental relationships. The connections between male (ish) and female (ishah) and human (adam) and earth (adamah) are jeopardized.
It is within this context that physical sex exists. In this new reality where we are removed and obscured from one another, sex is a way in which we can, temporarily be naked before one another. But does it actually represent the cleaving that exists in the garden? Does having sex with someone actually cause you to literally become one with them? Does it allow you to actually know them, fully? Or is sex just a symbol of unity the same way baptism is a symbol of death and rebirth? A powerful symbol for sure, but not the real thing.
The real thing is coming, “which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things on heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9–10). Paul goes on to write that the poem of two becoming one in Genesis is not referring to an earthly marriage, but the heavenly marriage of Jesus and the church. As Paul is living as a single man, what he is doing is attempting to live out the kingdom realities in the present age. He’s not denying himself, he’s actually fully pursuing the permanent and real union through the Church. He’s ready to get back into Eden.
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
John 14:23–24
I think that one of the core aspects of masculinity is the pursuit of the other. Experiencing the new. Climbing difficult peaks. Plunging into the unknown. Pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
Going back to Proverbs, I think that mission for me is accomplished by studying the Bible. I don’t know how to say this properly. I really really love the Bible. And I think that searching it out is honestly a way that I express my sexuality. So much of what is enthralling about romantic relationships for me is discovering someone who is other from me. Being intrigued and confused by someone else. But God is the ultimate other. And the way he reveals himself is so utterly intriguing and confusing.
The word is where I find my delight. The word is where I find a way to establish myself. A place to be rooted. To be honest, the way I think about my life right now is that I’m married to it. I see the ultimate purpose of my life is to get people to fall in love with the word the way that I have. Everything I do needs to be framed in context of that mission: it’s my north star. And I am willing to sacrifice everything I have and do in the same way that I would be willing for a spouse. Because in the end, I don’t believe that I can be living for myself. That’s just not an option.
His delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.Psalm 1:1–3
Samuel (שְׁמוּאֵל)
יְהוָה שְׁאִלְתִּיו
I have asked for him from the Lord
Hannah is introduced as a barren woman. Tim Keller notes that Hannah is actually the victim of two kinds of idolatry. While her rival wife Peninnah mocks her for her inability to bear children, her husband wants her to find her value in his love of her. “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” he asks. She is hemmed in between Rachel’s idol and Leah’s idol.
I feel the same way a lot of the times. On one side, I’m stuck in the limbo of singleness, judged by church culture as having no value without being married or at least pursuing marriage in the context of a dating relationship. On the other side, I’m encouraged by the secular culture to find my worth in my career success and sense of freedom. Sometimes I feel obligated to feel content in my singleness because I’ve had so much luck in other arenas of life.
A lot of my friends will tell you how much I dislike talking about my job. It might be one of my most notable quirks. Sometimes I myself am not sure of where the disdain comes from.
I think one reason is just how it makes me lose control of how I define myself. Adam Ragusea, a cooking YouTuber that I love, talks about this in The Cautionary Tale of Jani Lane. He explores how musicians often have a love-hate relationship with their one hit wonder, because they didn’t really choose to have their hit be their hit. Adam himself is known as the guy who seasons his cutting board (and not his steak) and every single one of his videos gets spammed with this particular meme. I feel the same way. It’s not my vulnerability, my desire for genuine friendship, or even my generosity that is my defining characteristic. It’s the company that I work for that makes me interesting, notable, and cool. About a year after I started working there, I ran into my summer camp directors and they forgot who I worked for- that honestly made me like them more as people.
Another reason is that it just puts me in a situation where I get to witness the shallowness of others when it comes to money. I’ve gotten into cars with people who ask me, in the first minute, how much money I make. I get to see how even the top 5% of society is utterly consumed with a scarcity mindset. My coworkers used to constantly be talking about buying a house even though they could easily do so if they lived in 90% of the country (of course, that would require exiting the rat race). I got culture shock from living in an area where every other car was a BMW or Mercedes. The church I went to was located in the city with the highest real estate prices in the world. The high schoolers I would try to minister to all had VP or CEO parents. I would think about the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12) every single day, thinking is this me?
Most of all what I have disdain for is the idea that I’ve got it made. It’s not like anyone has ever told me that I’ve basically won life. It’s not like anyone has told me that my other problems can’t matter because of my success. That would be mortifyingly rude. The only things that I hear are extreme positivity, like how I have a “dream job”. In truth I think that the only person thinking these critical things is me. I’m probably very paranoid to think that anyone else would view me in such a way. Yet I don’t think this paranoia comes out of nowhere. It comes from a lifetime of participation in a cultural idol. An idol that everyone has contributed to and is complicit in. Thousands of tiny suggestions to find meaning in something that can’t provide it.
As Christians, we simply cannot believe that joy, fulfillment, even happiness can be achieved by just having a good career and having lots of fun experiences. I feel like I’ve heard so many testimonies where someone had all that and found it utterly vacant. Yet in my position, I feel so much pressure to feel fulfilled. And ultimately, I just don’t. And it feels weird to have to justify that.
The idol of success and freedom is ultimately the idol of self-dependence. The idea of the self-made man. It obliterates sexuality because sexuality is the recognition that we are separated and need to be reconnected. What makes us human is the fact that we are dependent on others: it is not good for human to be alone. I found that embracing this idol was slowly stripping away my humanity. It’s hard to not feel resentful toward people who encouraged, even unknowingly, this idolatry.
I can’t help but think that Elkanah’s words cause just as much pain to Hannah as Peninnah’s. Sometimes it feels worse to have someone tell you that you should be happy than to be told that you should be miserable.
Hannah, crushed between two idols. What does she do? She worships God.
After they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.”
Hannah rises above the competing voices of her house, and she doesn’t respond to either one. Rather, she seeks to speak to God. To pray.
But what is the content of her prayer? It’s not I’m sorry God that I wanted to find my self worth in a son, please make me content in my barrenness. It’s give me a son, Lord!
Hannah refuses to forsake her desire of having a child. Rather, she turns her desire over to God.
The bible never instructs us to stop having desires.
do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Philippians 4:6
Prosperity gospel is the idea that every Christian should have health and wealth and that if they don’t, then they did something wrong. Very rightly is this condemned. Yet I wonder if the alternative message given is that people should not have health or wealth. That in fact, God somehow approves of suffering. That God’s ultimate plan is not actually healing and abundance.
What do we do with all of the passages where Jesus actually does heal people?
If God heals anyone, then healing is a good thing. And if healing one person is a good thing, then healing all people is a good thing. Obviously we have to deal with the fact that not all people will be healed (right away). But shouldn’t we ask for such things?
I’ve felt, at many times, wanting to no longer want marriage. I was just so tired of disappointment. But I found that it was emotionally impossible to do that without somehow concluding that it was bad for people to be married. I would judge my engaged and married friends and think that singleness was a holier way to live. But that was wrong, because marriage is fundamentally good.
Giving up on marriage actually puts me in a position where I have less faith in God because I’ve stopped asking him for it. Labeling myself as contently single allows me to be less vulnerable and less dependent on God. It is much riskier to continue asking God for something he doesn’t give you.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
Matthew 7:7–8
In Christianese we talk a lot about open doors and closed doors. When we talk about a closed door, we usually talk about opportunities that seem to be taken away from us. A closed door is a sign that we should move on.
Yet, in Matthew, Jesus tells us to knock on closed doors. To be persistent in the things that seem unlikely or even impossible. To have deeper faith that God will listen.
When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!”
Genesis 30:1
Rachel also asks, but she asks her husband. She thinks that she can draw her value out of something of this world. She thinks that she can somehow manipulate the cards to get what she wants. But she doesn’t understand that children are a gift. That’s what’s so tragic about the entire Jacob narrative. People treating gifts like something they can earn.
Hannah does understand, and she demonstrates this by offering to give Samuel away. She releases her claim on her firstborn. By doing this she is living out the way that every Israelite was actually supposed to live. Every firstborn thing belonged to the Lord according to to the law. Even the first-fruits were supposed to be offered to God. Firstborn children and animals were meant to be dedicated to God, but could be redeemed for a price. But most Israelites continued to live as if their children were their possessions and not something they were stewarding on behalf of God.
House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.
Proverbs 19:14
When I first got saved, my roommate and mentor started dating someone. It was going super well. After about half a year though, it started getting difficult. They decided to take a break of two weeks. In the middle of that break, my friend told me “You know what, I now understand that a wife is a gift from God”. That allowed him to act in a way where he didn’t feel anxious about the relationship, and it may have in fact saved it. They got married.
I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t be in shape enough, can’t be smart enough, can’t be popular enough to win a wife, no matter what the logic of this world dictates. But, if it’s foolish to try to chase and grab after a gift, it’s equally foolish to fold my arms and disqualify myself from receiving it. I have to have an open hand.
Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?
Genesis 18:25
It’s both a statement of faith and a plea for action. Will not the Judge of all the earth do right? I think this now, all the time. I have faith that God will give me a spouse. Why wouldn’t he? Yet, I can’t assume that he will, because I don’t deserve it.
He’s already given me so much. I cannot comprehend his generosity. All this for a sinner.
Yet, what’s him to prevent me from giving more?
Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?
Conclusion
Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
Hebrews 13:13–14
I see yet another move. Another opportunity for loneliness. Another opportunity to see my hopes deferred.
In the end, what right do I have to not be alone?
Wasn’t Jesus alone, on the cross?
In the end, I have no way home but by the way that he calls me.
